Limited Base Automation

I think that one of greatest things to get right is the multitasking between base management, and battles. Saying that it's 'too hard' to do is not an excuse, it just means you will have to get better.
The fun in these games is from genuinely being better than your opponent on all levels and not just on one. Otherwise you could simply give everyone a fully equipped base and tell them to build an army, that is a viable option but I don't think its what they're aiming for.

Even automating certain (perhaps trivial) tasks is something you really need to balance out, but this is being discussed heavily in the defining micro thread.

I agree, to a point. I found it frustrating in SupCom to manage late game sprawl—as economies grew the need to give orders expanded exponentially. Imagine playing four or five SupCom games simultaneously. Could be overwhelming and tedious without new ways to manage 'the big picture'.

From my experience in introducing people to games like TA, saying "get better" when they complain about something being hard isn't generally productive; it just irritates them and makes them not want to play the game at all. Comes across as patronizing, and not a good argument in general. We're playing games, not learning algebra. It needs to be fun BEFORE we get good at it, not just after.

Per nickgoodenough: PA is a game that would thrive on gargantuan scales with bases on multiple planets. If there isn't a way to make maintenance of all those bases straightforward to manage... Well, hardcore types will still enjoy it (myself included I think), but good luck convincing anyone else to play. Moreover, we want players to be ENCOURAGED to build multiple bases, and they won't if the idea of maintaining each new one makes the multitasking significantly more complex. It's an intimidation factor more than anything else.

I guess in a lot of people's minds this is like a hardcore vs casual battle. I personally don't view it that way (no automation can match an expert multitasker with a good strategy, so this isn't a Mario Kart blue shell problem), but I understand where the passionate opinions come from. But personally, I'm far more concerned with having a fun game that my friends will actually play. So I say make things easier for them to track what's actually going on without feeling overwhelmed, while not taking anything away from the super competitive multitasking lovers out there (who will undoubtedly obliterate them anyway). Everybody's happier, right?

/soapbox

Hi,

I think nutrino has a very good idea, i had the same idea a while ago in supcom,
i basicly wanted to remove some micro for units, the easiest way was to let the AI
take over control to allow it to move units around attack, build, reclaim ect,
this would then allow me to add custom scripted behaviours for units in the AI code, but also trigger them maually via toggles or unit script, however it proved difficult and i abandoned the idea because i couldnt get the AI to switch off, or remove units from the AI's control, however upto that point everything worked as i expected it to, a human player and an AI were working together on the same team.

i think nutrino's idea is actually very good, apart from the afore mentioned reasons for the idea, it would also if done this way open up possibilities to allow custom scripted unit behaviours which we can switch on and off at will, the possibilities to make units do none generic things would be endless.

if this is actually implimeted im very excited, this one part of unit behaviours could really make a differance to modders of units.. make it AWESOME!

Yes this I absolutely agree with. The massive scae of the game requires some way to deal with tasks, or to provide of way of dealing with this efficiently. Whether or not automation is the way forward, I'm far from convinced. But I don't have a good alternative. Obviously information needs to presented clearly and easily accessible, but how exactly I'm not sure.

I don't think that's completely fair comparison, First we don't know the scale/number of planets for the "Ranked" game type, and even if there are multiple planets, they won't all have the same activity as a single game of SupCom/FA, if a planet is uncontested if you could easily set up the entire planet in a decent time frame with Queue commands and not have to pay it any attention unless your opponent starts paying attention to it.

There are still a bit too many unknowns for an argument like that to truly hold water IMO.

Mike

Yes, I can imagine that you will not have 5 active combat situations simultaneously. It will probably be limited to a small theatre. Much like Total War where your inner most territories are 'safe' and do not require (full) attention.

I have a couple problems with the direction you are taking this one. The first and foremost being you are asking ways to automate the macro side of the game allowing you to focus more on the micro in a game that has clearly stated that it will have a macro focus. You're doing it backwards.

The next concern I have is that automating macro is apparently quite difficult. Historically I cannot think of a single game that has ever really done this well. The most notable example I can think of is the Civilization series which is somewhat notorious for just how bad their automation can truly be.

Lastly, is the feeling that if somehow they actually do make macro automation like this possible, and in the highly unlikely scenario that the AI isn't terrible at it, you have basically just created a game that can play itself as well or better than you can.

Why are you playing it again exactly?

because its UBER and there gonna make it AWESOME.

obviously i joke, but seriously IF were going to be able to have "thousands"
of units on different planets then a little automation would not hurt.

I'm all for automation . . . of UNITS. He's asking for automation to let constructors build bases for him which to me would kind of defeat much of the point of the game. I completely agree that the game is going to be crazy hectic without some automation features.

It's just a question of what should and should not be automated. I think including the option to automate your base construction could be a very bad idea. My concern, as I stated is that it could lead to the painful question, which in turn would naturally lead to simply uninstalling the game.

Goodness no, I don't want the AI to build my base for me! That's why I mentioned wanting to always make sure I got to hold onto any "creative" elements of the game. Ironically, it's for this very reason I don't particularly want automation of units beyond good path finding, basic movements a la TA gunship swaying, queuable movements and patrols, etc. All I'm talking about is making it easier to shift my focus to other things when needed, shifting my base into a highly temporary, relatively low maintenance state. I adore the base building in games like TA. This in no way harms that.

At any rate, I'm not terribly attached to my idea in particular. Other, more creative folks in this thread frankly have presented much better ones. Forget mine if you wish.

Hi,

He did say maybe setting a flag on the unit(s) which will prolly be a toggle on the ui.
I wouldnt mind at all setting up a base on a planet then switching on the AI part so that
base can sustain its self. We still do not know the scale, they know something we dont, maybe there could be like 40+ planets :| there is some reasoning to why he has proposed this.

for me it isn't about automating the macro it's about getting what i want done, done quickly and easily. i would love to be able to select some constructors and say

'Minions, I want a resource base over there, full shields, AA, T3 metal and enough power to run the whole setup.'

'Here's your budget, make it happen.'

And then they make it happen using some pre-made script. while you move on to something more important. They do what you would do anyway but the entire order process takes 30 seconds to do something which would manually take 2-3 mins to do properly.

it is about letting the player work less to get what they want so they can get more done and thus devote more time to either carefully thought out strategy or crazy tactics.

I believe this already exists in SC and SCFA for SCAUs. I see no reason why it wouldn't be in PA. It seems an obvious necessity.

This was in SC:FA and the engineering buildings were available to UEF and Cybren factions. They were tech upgradable to allow them to have proportional building power to your resource income. SC2 I believe had this as a late research option for the UEF faction. Certain buildings could repair friendly buildings and units within a specific radius. Engineering buildings were a great way of boosting your building power and they were an important building to have in amongst your defensive lines. Also essential for late game experimental spamming.

Agreed, I think that perhaps we could take the "repair wreckage" function a step further. We should - particularly because there are no factions so all units are the same - be able to reanimate any wreckage on the battlefield be they structures or units. As in previous games the process would simply take less time and resources than building the unit from scratch. Recycling I suppose it is called.

Yeah, this is the same as selecting a group of engineers and telling them to fulfil a build template you previously created and saved. Provided an engineer of the required tech level was selected in the group the rest could all be T1 if you wanted. You could even que up multiple templates in the same way.

I really don't want to come across as insulting. So for the record I'm not being condescending or trying to say that if you haven't played a particular game then you are stupid or aren't welcome here.

However, it sounds to me like you guys are asking questions based on either lack of knowledge or experience of the previous games like TA or SC and SC:FA. This doesn't make your questions any less valid or make you an idiot. It simply means that maybe the best suggestion I can make for you is to try out the other games. They're all great and I can't think of a better way to kill the next 12 months while you wait for PA.

If you have played these games and are unfamiliar with the various commands that are available to the player - like templates for example - go back and do a little reading and try things out in skirmish. See how they work and imagine how they might then be applied in a game of this scale.

In all honesty, bases can already be fairly automated in SC and TA, with engineer patrols going round fixing things automatically, and even factories that can repeat a string of orders and send them to the frontlines via transport

And the extreme was the support commander in SC, which would automatically rebuild any structure it had been assigned to assist, including T3 factories. That'd be a handy unit to have defending a base in maps on an interplanetary scale!

Hmm, i would like a patrol function like in supcom but were you can decide what units should do on that route. Like a bunch of checkboxes named: repair, reclaim, rebuild, help build structure, help build unit, help build experimental (If they are included) that you can check uncheck on the patrol route somehow. (I hated it when my repair unit began helping my factories instead).

I would also like base schematics like in supcom you can save ingame and out of game (a meny in the main options perhaps?) so that you can tell a engineer to build a outpost quickly. Maybe improved from subcom, like a priority list maybe (So that if one important building is destroyed while building he will rebuild it at once putting any other building on hold).

On the subject of automation (but not base related):

Some sort of planning feature would be nice to sync multible attacks whit objectives for your units and "what if" conditions (switches) (If target is destroyed: try to take down secondary target, if your forces has lost 50% before achiving a set goal: retreat, etc). There was one in supcom wasent it? It wasent good enof, tryed it once and never used it again. It didnt allow enof planning (You could give all the others you wanted, and then accept to start it, but i want to "start" the plan whenever i want, not when im done editing it, and i want way more options in it).

Offcourse getting them ingame in a good and useable way would be hard.

And the cost would most likely be high on the last one (since aloot of the system needs to be figured out from scratch to be easily useable).

I'm actually uncertain about how much automation should go into PA. Certainly the improvements in automation and queueing in Supcom/FA were, imo, a real innovation in their time, which helped to really move the focus of the game away from frantic micro (yes, I know this requires a lot of skill - but different sorts of skills) towards a more intensive, play-and-counterplay strategic mode. this is something that I feel has really not been taken up by lots of more recent RTS games, with Starcraft 2-style (and even DOTA-style, while we're at it) unit-control games holding the field.

Build templates were great, though not really that useful in 1v1 and ladder in Supcom as mostly all you wanted was factories, tons of them, and the adjacency bonuses etc. didn't really start to come into play until tech 2 - which you didn't often reach. In FA 1v1, most outposts were just a handful of factories with some radar and maybe a bit of energy production, none of which you really needed templates for. Likewise patrol routes, engineering structures, and ferry points (my personal favourite) all made a big contribution to making FA distinctive, and with a better focus on strategy-over-tactics than most RTS games that have come since.

But my biggest question really is: how much of this will change in PA? If you have to control multiple bases at once, on different planets, I can see a lot of uses for the more advanced automation settings described in this thread. Some of them could be solved by the template system: you want to expand your resource production? Then just make a template for a few fusion plants and a few mass fabricators (I'm assuming mass fabs will be in this), shift-queue a few of those, then go back to the war. Perhaps the template idea could be expanded to create order templates - where an engineer assigned to an order template will not only build the structures set out by the template, but assist them, patrol around them, repair them, and replace them (and with the priorities of these different actions definable by the player). This would be great, but might not get used unless the maps get so big that such groups of structures can wind up a long way away from a player's attention (i.e the forefront of the current battle).

Do we want a game that allows a player to make bases that are that safe? FA was all about finding ways to make a player's back lines into the next front line, whether through flanking attacks, raiding, drops, bombing, or just plain breaking through their defensive lines. Perhaps we'll need more automation, and need to issue more strategic-level commands to units, in the Galactic War mode? But it does seem that whether these features will be needed in the game will depend on how big, or how spread out, the maps are.